Monday, June 25, 2012

K-Drama Review: A Gentleman's Dignity, Episodes 5-6

Our F44, four guyfriends who are over forty, are gathered together in their favorite coffee shop discussing a matter of great importance: which member of the kpop girl group Girls Generation is the best. *headdesk* Do-Jin insists that it's Taeyeon (the best singer), Taesan insists that it's Yuri (the curviest), while Jungrok stubbornly holds out that Tiffany is the best (incidentally, Tiffany is my favorite member, too).

Yoon stares at them all and mumbles his disapproval of their silliness. Until they all spot Sooyoung of Girls Generation at the counter and Yoon goes running up to her, salivating and begging for an autograph, even stooping so low as to do a little dance in imitation of the song "Genie".

Let Us Never Speak of This Moment Again.

But this throwaway intro scene does serve nicely to remind us that despite the title of the show, these gentleman have very little dignity. They're little boys who got taller and entered the workforce is all.

In the lovey-dovey plots, Sera, our heroine Yisoo's roommate, is jealous over Yisoo liking her boyfriend Taesan. But c'mon, now! Taesan doesn't like Yisoo and he's made it clear that he never will, plus Yisoo's not the man-stealing type. So Sera's passive aggressive verbal jabs at Yisoo are kind of pointless and outright mean. You won Sera, you got the guy--you don't have to rub your friend's face in it.

Taesan's little sister Me Ahri has a few connections besides Yoon going on now. She teams up with Do-Jin to help him a little bit with his pursuit of Yisoo. Then we find out that she's friends with Jungrok's dragon lady wife, so the web of connections thickens. Me Ahri is also the one to send Yisoo a daring, fetchingly red dress.

First Time She Has Really Smiled, This Episode.

In a series of misunderstandings and hijinks, Yisoo puts on the dress and winds up stranded in the middle of the city with no cab fare and a dying cellphone battery. She calls up Do-Jin to rescue her (yeah, that's sending a mixed message, when she's been trying to get him to leave her alone). Do-Jin says he won't come, but then does. And he gets so angry at finding her in her party dress, laughing at someone sitting in a car, he rams his own car into the back of their vehicle.

Ehh. It's supposed to be an example of his devotion toward Yisoo since Do-Jin normally treats his car with kid gloves, but there's an important distinction for me: Do-Jin isn't crashing his car to save Yisoo from anything. He's crashing it to cut short her potentially flirtatious conversation and to express his displeasure! That action is in the same category with guys who punch a wall to show a girl just how ticked they are.

My Destruction of Property Indicates My Seriousness.

So Do-Jin takes Yisoo with him (girl, why are you getting into a car with a man who just intentionally smashed his fender in a fit of temper?), and they have a few more romantically charged moments, but nothing really changes between them.

The only real plot complication shown in these episodes is Colin, a 20-year-old guy who is looking for his birth father. Colin has made appearances in other episodes, but nothing has really been done with his character yet. Now he's getting closer to the F44 and he's still not sure which one of them is his papa.

It's probably not Taesan, since that wouldn't make for much drama, and probably not Yoon, since that would be creepy (as Colin is Me Ahri's friend). If it's Jungrok, I hope that the father-son connection will bring some depth to Jungrok's character, and if it's Do-Jin, that'll make for good tension, too. Colin's not an exciting character, but he could bring about some big changes and as a bonus he is played by the cute one from CN BLUE.

Pictured: The Cute One From CN BLUE.

There's more drama and sadness with Yisoo mooning over Taesan, but then Do-Jin whisks her away for a moonlight stroll, which ends in this:

Yay!

Which is such a sweet and tender moment, it makes one wonder why Do-Jin can't be considerably less creepy all the time. Could we just stay in the non-creep zone, if these are the results? 제발?

Things I Loved:

1. Guest appearance by Sooyoung. It was only for 30 seconds, and it caused one of the silliest scenes ever, but it was good to see her adorable smiling face in the show.

Sooyoung, Hwaiting! (화이팅!)

2. Yoon. He's precious, and so innocent for a grown-up, successful lawyer. He's trying to do right by Me Ahri, and I'd probably be supporting them as a couple if Me Ahri were more mature. I tend to wish Yoon could be paired with someone more dignified.

But Any Couple He's Part of Will Be A Sweet Couple.

3. Do-Jin. He's still a stubborn mule, but less jerkish now that we know he's stopped dating other women while pursuing Yisoo. It's adorable that he starts bumbling around her, doing really stupid things as if he were an awkward teenager. It's nice to see him being less than totally self-assured.

At His Best When He's At His Worst, If You Will.

Complaints:

1. Sera/Taesan. I don't care if they stay together or break up, so any subplot involving their potential to stay together or break up has me checking out. Taesan is nice but not nice enough that I want to save him from Sera, and Sera is mean but not mean enough that I want her to get some comeuppance. So. We have a couple that induces no emotional attachment of any kind for me.

Pointless Bickering Gets Dreary at Some Point.

2. Sad Yisoo. The girl needs to find some joy in life and stop slumping. Taesan not liking Yisoo makes her sad, and Do-Jin liking her makes her sad, and most everything makes her cringe and fret and worry. For me to love her again, she'll need to start enjoying her world more.

Episode Evaluations: Despite their flaws, I like Yisoo and love Do-Jin, and they're currently the only reasons I'm watching A Gentleman's Dignity. I'm just not invested in what happens to the other three couples, and that's a shame because it means that I'm only really cued into about 25 minutes of screentime per episode.